36 Questions: A Joanne Fanfiction

Question Four:

What would constitute a 'perfect day' for you?

It was Saturday, and the show was swiftly during to a close. The exhausted celebrities and professionals were told just to hold on a little longer in order to film the results show. Meanwhile Dianne and Joe were off in a corner, quietly in conversation whilst the props team cleared up around them.

"I can't believe you actually got the right size."

"I know, go on Dianne," she said before being interrupted by a deep chuckle.

"When she said two hundred we guessed she meant centimetres not meters." Chris, one of the members of the prop department said from behind them.

"Oh," said Dianne, Joe in peals of laughter beside her.

"Shh you it wasn't that funny!"

"You know it was, come on Di, imagine if we were two hundred meters up at the beginning! It would have taken us the entire song just to get down!"

Grudgingly, she agreed before steering the conversation back to the Charleston. "Yeah if we had done that no one would have given you a 31! A thirty one for week two, go on Joe!"

He smiled weakly at this, his eyes having taken a more grey hue compared to their usual bright blue. Dianne, having spent so much time with him in the past short weeks, noticed this immediately. "What is it?" she asked, concern evident in her voice. He shrugged slightly in response. Swiftly, she took him aside, gently leading him into his dressing room, and sitting them both down onto the sofa, a casual arm around his shoulder. "Right, what's up?"

"It's nothing I'm just being stupid," he mumbled into his hands, before tugging on his slightly too long hair in stress.

"Well tell me what it is, and let me be the judge of that," she said softly.

"It's silly it's just it's the first elimination tonight, and I really don't want to be the first to go. I know it's a competition, and I don't want to let you down, you deserve to go further this year and I don't want to be the one stopping you and I don't really believe anyone other than my followers will vote for me, but they'll only do it on the internet and they don't all live in the UK and even then I don't know I just don't know," he managed to say in one breath. "Sorry, I just really want to get through," he sighed, smiling bashfully.

"Whether we're through or not Joe I've had an amazing time, and I'm so proud of what you've managed to achieve, but something tells me that we'll be alright. Besides, even if we are in the dance-off, we've got one of the highest scores anyway so we'll be more likely to get through. Don't worry, we've got this. In the meantime, do you want to do a question to take your mind off of everything?" she said, watching his face for any more signs of stress.

"Yeah good idea, we might as well," he sighed, still not completely relaxed, his nerves still nowhere near under control.

With that, she sprinted off, returning less than a minute later slightly out of breath and clutching her phone. She plonked herself on the sofa, turning to face Joe's still worried, yet slightly amused face. She cleared her throat dramatically in an attempt to make him laugh (which was successful) before reading, her eyes squinting in the dim light of the dressing room. "What would constitute a 'perfect' day for you?"

"Me?"

"Yep, it's your turn to go first!"

"Umm okay. Maybe a day in the countryside with lots of friends on a summery day, followed by I don't know, an evening playing video games? I don't really know, I'm struggling to concentrate on this at the moment."

"Okay, what video games then?"

"Mario kart-have you seen Mikey play it? Comedy gold." He laughed. Dianne smiled, her plan had worked, and he was beginning to become distracted of the looming elimination.

"Where in the countryside?"

"I'm not fused about where, as long as there is enough space for us to muck about, maybe for Oli to fly his drone or whatever and for us to play football in a random field in the middle of nowhere."

"I can see that, yeah."

"Ooo good! And we'd have a couple of beers or something in the evening, and yeah, I think that would be a pretty good day. In fact, I kind of based that of an actual day last summer that was a good day. Well it would have been the perfect day if England had won the football, but you can't have everything."

"That sounds like a good day. What about the perfect day?" she asked, noticing he hadn't quite answered the question.

"Tomorrow could be the perfect day if we let it be," he joked, half seriously.

"You alright there Joe? Are you trying to sound like a wise old granddad?" she asked, not quite detecting the element of seriousness in his tone.

He shook his head, smiling softly to himself gratefully, as he realised he hadn't wanted to actually elaborate on his comment.

"I'm fine. What about you, what does your perfect day look like?"

"I think about this a lot actually," she started before being cut off.

"Really? I don't."

"I never would have guessed!" she remarked sarcastically, as they giggled.

"Sorry, carry on."

"It's kind of similar to yours actually. I'd love a long summery day with my family, we'd stay at the beach for almost the whole day, just chilling, swimming and catching up. We'd play beach games and sunbathe all day, go on a beach run and end with a massive barbecue as the sun sets. Did I tell you that I'm obsessed with sunsets?" He shook his head as a response, so she continued "well I love them, them and rainbows ever since I was a kid – obsessed." She laughed at herself, "Yeah, that's my perfect day."

"Sounds like a pretty good day to me."

"Sounds perfect to me." She grinned.

And with this Joe's eyes were back to their bright blue, and Dianne smiled in triumph. They continued talking, as usual not keeping track of time until a frantic runner peered their head Joe's dressing room door, disrupting their calm conversation.

"Eliminations start in two minutes!" they said, before dashing off as quickly as they had arrived.

Joe took an exaggerated deep breath, and Dianne laughed fondly. "Remember: positive attracts positive. Put it out into the universe Joe, and it'll happen."

He nodded, before wrapping a casual arm around her shoulders, steering them both onto the stage for eliminations to begin.

It was a couple hours later, the after party in the process of wrapping up, and Joe and Dianne were the last two stragglers. Huddled together for warmth, Joe was still in shock.

"We did it Di we did it!"

"We did, see ya on Monday partner!"

And with that, Dianne hugged him goodbye and disappeared into the darkness of the night, her red locks shining in the moonlight. Joe stood on the street, lost in thought until his Uber arrived, and he hauled his exhausted body into the back, mumbling his address at the driver before smiling contently. He knew he was going to put himself out of his comfort zone on this show, but he had never expected to see the benefits of doing so this soon. Despite his clear tiredness and his aching limbs, he found himself looking forward to Monday already.